


TLS and the Sloane Ranger

by sgam76



Series: A Felicitous Natal Celebration [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst and Humor, Gen, Humor, MI6, Mild Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Spies in training, Spymaster Mycroft, Teen Anthea, Teen Sherlock, They're all MI6, When Sherlock and Anthea met, Young Anthea, Young Sherlock, and there's a goat, it's a bit of a romp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-06-26 16:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15666621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgam76/pseuds/sgam76
Summary: Anthea Holder, smart as a whip and well aware of it, meets Mycroft Holmes' little brother, the infamous Lock Holmes (who has a number of other, less-flattering names). It doesn't go quite as she expects.Oh, yes, and there's a goat.





	1. In Which Our Heroine Meets the Potential Problem of the Piece, and is Surprised

**Author's Note:**

> So, as I mentioned, I feel the need to write some fluff, as a break from the heavy themes I've been handling in A Long Walk Down a Dusty Road. So this happened--it's based on a throw-away line in either Redemption or Scheherezade, where Anthea spoke about this period in passing. Several folks had expressed an interest in hearing the actual story, so shazam--here we are. This will be short--three chapters at the outside, and maybe only two.
> 
> One quick note--in Britain, a Sloane Ranger is a now slightly-outdated term that would have been very much extant during the time of this story. Back in the day, Princess Diana, while being courted by Prince Charles, was described in the tabloids as a Sloanie. The Wikipedia definition says "a Sloanie is a stereotypical young upper-middle or upper class person who pursues a distinctive fashionable lifestyle." And yes, it's usually intended as a bit of a slam.

_January 16, 2000_

 

She’d heard of him, of course.

Well, that wasn’t strictly true—or, at least, not the _whole_ truth. _Everyone_ in MI6 had heard of him: The Boy Wonder, The Enfant Terrible, or, most often, TLS (an appellation Anthea had heard first during an acrimonious debriefing session in her first week—one in which the debriefee ended up with copious amounts of figurative egg on her face, which she, after the session, laid at the door of said “TLS”. Anthea found out later than the letters were shorthand in certain circles for “That Little Shit”).

So having heard of him wasn’t saying much. But Anthea, unlike most people of her acquaintance, had actually _listened_ —not just in official settings, and just as much to what _wasn’t_ said, as what was. And what wasn’t said, in this case, was a single, solitary thing that told her who Sherlock Holmes, “Lock” Holmes, as he called himself, _really_ was.

So she found herself heading into her first official mission briefing, in which she would be working on Mycroft Holmes’ team along with TLS-- _Lock_ , with a fair amount of anticipation.

Mycroft was one of ten current team leaders handling European assignments. Very tall, thin, patrician and cool. Anthea liked him, based on their so-far-limited interactions: reserved, certainly, but startlingly intelligent and often wickedly, aridly funny. She had provided last-minute backup for one of his teams twice, handling the typical “baby agent” tasks—remote surveillance, report writing, and the like, though she also once found herself making an unexpected drop-off when another team member was involved in a car smash en route. Mycroft had been quietly pleased with both her efforts and her initiative at picking up the package and taking off, without waiting for either orders or permission. She suspected that this current briefing might well be preparatory to a formal offer to join his group—fairly heady stuff, for an intern who’d only been at MI6 for three months.

She arrived at the meeting room a standard fifteen minutes early—not early enough to seem like she was wasting time she could have spent doing other things, but early enough to sometimes meet the other participants informally before the session kicked off. It made the actual briefings much more effective when she had a clearer picture of the nature of the team. She expected to see Mycroft Holmes there as well—he had once raised an ironic eyebrow when they walked into a meeting room at precisely the same time three sessions in a row.

The room, surprisingly, was empty. She checked her calendar printout; checked the room number; wandered outside and looked down the empty hallway. She had just decided to return to her cubicle and call the meeting organizer when the door from the stairwell opened, and a man—boy—came out.

“No, you’re in the right place,” the boy drawled, in a startlingly deep voice for someone so young. He walked lazily up to her, in skin-tight black designer jeans, dark blue, very expensive long-sleeved jumper and heavy black boots. He dropped his chin and looked at her over the top of his dark, reflective-surfaced sunglasses. (“Sunglasses indoors,” sniffed Anthea’s inner Aunt Margaret. “Insufferable.”) “I jiggered your calendar. The actual meeting doesn’t start for another forty-five minutes.” He looked very pleased with himself.

“Good for you,” she said crisply, spun on her heel and stalked back up the hallway. She was just to the corner when she heard an offended “Hey!” from behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw him standing at the doorway still, an astounded look on his face. She twiddled her fingers at him and kept going.

 

 

Thirty minutes later to the second, Anthea was back. This time Mycroft Holmes came out of the stairwell just as she exited the lift, and she gave him a professional smile as he opened the door to the meeting room for her. They were both startled when that deep voice came from the far end of the room.

“She’s rude,” the boy said. Anthea opened her mouth to reply, but Mycroft beat her to it.

“She’s intelligent,” he said, “and resourceful. Rather like you, but with at least a nodding acquaintance with social decorum,” he said.

The boy scowled and walked over to stand in front of Anthea, giving her a slow up-and-down from behind those ridiculous sunglasses. “I’ll have to be convinced,” he said, addressing himself to his brother—because, of course, Anthea had long since realized that this was the elusive Lock Holmes. TLS.

He was tall—not as tall as his brother, but only just, and the height must have been quite recent, since his muscles still seemed a little startled by it all—just a hair awkward in his movements, though he tried to make up for it by interjecting drama. Dark, curly hair, just long enough to brush his collar, swept back from his brow by an aggressive use of gel of some kind, but left to run rogue in the back. Thin, in the weedy way of boys who had grown quickly and weren’t quite done yet, with huge hands but delicate, fine-boned wrists. He was more pretty than handsome, in part because of his youth.

That prettiness, however, was marred by the thunderous frown that seemed to be his default expression.

Anthea gave him a cheerful, polite smile. “You may wish to unbutton those brows,” she said sweetly. “Causes premature wrinkles, and it would be a shame to ruin such a pretty face.” She heard Mycroft made a choked sound behind her but didn’t turn to look.

Lock’s mouth dropped open in outrage. It took a moment before he could get a sound out. “You, you can’t—why did you—” he trailed off in confusion.

Anthea took pity on the boy, as his brother snickered in the background while fiddling with the audiovisual equipment. “You were just about to make some sort of slighting remark based on my appearance and age. I just beat you to it. So now we’re done, yes?”

To his credit, Lock didn’t stay flustered for long. He pulled himself stiffly to his full height, moving out of his previous languid slouch. Then he looked her carefully up and down, before opening his mouth.

“Intern,” he said crisply. “Scheduled for a six-month berth, but already making moves to accept permanent status prematurely—successfully, judging by my brother’s attentions. Single, lives alone, no pets but unhappy about it, raised by a single mother of vehemently feminist persuasion.” He looked over her clothing one more time before nodding dismissively. “A Sloane Ranger with delusions of competency.” He crossed his arms and waited for her to detonate, while his brother watched with rapt attention from behind the conference table.

Anthea was torn between fury and laughter. He was so _determined_ to be unlikeable.

“Not _too_ bad,” she said, nodding. “I am indeed on a six-month track, but am planning to curtail that if I can—I wouldn’t have taken the internship if I didn’t already know I wanted to stay. I’ll defer to your brother, but I hope you’re not implying anything other than his _professional_ attention.” Mycroft made a soft choking noise but didn’t speak. “I am single and pet-less, unless a flat full of rather large spiders counts.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “But I’m afraid you’re quite off-track on the rest.”

The outrage was back. “How?” Lock barked. “What did I miss? The attire is clearly—”

“They’re mostly my mother’s,” Anthea said, just _slightly_ condescendingly, “and she was, is, definitely a bit Sloanie—well-heeled, obsessively well-groomed and not terribly deep. But the clothes are good quality and I like them, so I wear them. But I’ve never lived with her—I was raised by my Aunt Margaret, who is, to be fair, pretty bolshie about feminism. So I guess I’ll give you that.” She paused for effect. “She’s a diplomat.”

They all knew that word was code for something that was sometimes rather more. Siger Holmes, father of these two extraordinary young men, was also a “diplomat”.

It was clear Lock couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or offended. Anthea didn’t give him the chance to choose before continuing.

“It’s my turn now, I think,” she said, looking him up and down. “Let’s see: youngest child, somewhat spoilt but talented enough that it’s overlooked, at least officially. Successful in last nine missions, each of increasing complexity and responsibility. Enjoy fine clothes, but wear them for effect more than a true concern with fashion. Currently wearing a flick knife concealed in your right boot top, and a lockpick set in your left side pocket. The shape is quite distinctive, and those jeans are _very_ tight.” She looked once more, before bringing her gaze back up to look directly into those mirrored lenses. “And you dress to the left.”

Those sunglasses stared at her momentarily, glinting above Lock’s flinty expression, before that expression suddenly broke into a goofy, slanted grin that transformed his face. He emitted a deep, rumbling laugh that Anthea willingly joined. “Well-played,” he chuckled.

She was struck again by that face, that currently looked twelve at the outside. “How old are you, anyway?” she asked, still grinning.

He sobered instantly. “Twenty-two,” he said stiffly.

“No, you’re not,” Anthea found herself saying in unison with Mycroft, who gave a chuckle of his own.

“Well, I’m almost 20,” Lock said defensively, with a bit of resentment at being caught out.

“In a bit over 11 months,” Mycroft muttered under his breath. Lock turned that lethal scowl on his brother, who ignored him.

“Ooh, then I’m older than you,” Anthea said gleefully. “My birthday was in November.”

“Physically, perhaps,” Sherlock sniffed. “I am considerably more mature, however.”

Mycroft gave an outright bark of laughter, earning him another scowl.

“Moving on,” Anthea said briskly. “Were you an intern as well? I know you’ve been here at least six months, anyway.”

“No, it’s my ‘gap year’, of a sort,” Lock said, waving his hand airily in punctuation. “My brother thought that a taste of espionage before returning to academia might appeal. It would also give my professors a break from me—some of them have no sense of adventure, nor humour.”

“Wait—you mean you’ve already started university?”  Anthea asked. “Why did you wait for your gap until after you’d completed your first year?”

The boy shook that shaggy head. “No, I’ve finished.  Started uni at 16, so I got a bit of a head start,” he said smugly. “Completed my undergraduate degree this past May. I’ll likely head back for my PhD once I’m done with this lark. But I’m in no particular hurry.”

Anthea was quite sure she had never heard MI6 described as a “lark” before.

She settled next on the most annoying part of this conversation.

“I can’t tell if you’re lying without seeing your eyes,” she said, and reached out to snatch the sunglasses off Lock’s nose, evading his belated grab for them with ease. She nearly dropped them, though, when she looked up and saw what they’d been hiding.

Ice-pale eyes blinked, looking warily over towards his brother, who now strode around the table for a closer view. Around those eyes, the skin was swollen, with colours ranging from almost black, through purple, pale blue and green-yellow. The right eye was mostly closed, the white a deep red at its inner edge.

“ _Sherlock!_ ” Mycroft breathed, gripping his brother’s chin and angling his head for examination.

The portions of the boy’s face that weren’t blue and purple flushed a deep rose. “Stop,” he muttered. “I’m fine, and gave as good as I got. Well, nearly.”

“Who?” gritted Mycroft.

“You don’t need to—” Lock began.

“ _Who?_ ” his brother demanded again.

“Cavendish,” Lock said. “He doesn’t like me, and made himself a nuisance yesterday evening after I pointed out a significant misstatement in his report on the Bulgarian mission in the debriefing session with Atherton. But you can’t go after him. You _can’t_. And anyway, I managed to break three of his fingers, so we’re even. He won’t try it again.” He paused, and lowered his eyes. “Please, Myc,” he said, very softly.

There was a long, rather fraught silence, before Mycroft huffed a sigh. “All right,” he said, “on one condition. If this happens again, you come to me, instantly. Cavendish will no longer be sent on assignments with you. And if I hear of any more problems, he will be off my team, permanently, and I will make sure his future superiors know why.”

Anthea was familiar with Cavendish—large, muscular, and aggressive. She was impressed that Lock, slight as he was, had managed to inflict damage on the man, though it made her wonder what other damage might be lurking under the boy’s jeans and dark jumper.

Mycroft was evidently of the same mind. “Is there anything of note, other than the eyes? Do you need to see Medical?  The truth, brother mine.”

“Ribs are sore,” Lock said grudgingly. Mycroft’s hand roughly shoved up the edge of the jumper, eluding Lock’s flailing hands, to expose a dark, blue-green boot print on pale skin. As his brother stared, Lock forced the hand away and jerked the fabric back down.

Anthea realized suddenly that she was nearly as angry as Mycroft. Cavendish was a big man—taller than Mycroft, a bit, and likely three stone heavier. He made two of Lock, and had years of field experience and fight training to boot. It was contemptible.

“I amend my earlier statement,” Mycroft said. “Cavendish is gone, effective today.” He looked at his brother’s dismayed face. “But not for the reason you think—or, at least, not entirely.  This,” and he waved his hand to encompass his brother’s damaged form, ”indicates a tendency towards aggression of an inappropriate nature. I have little patience for bullies, and refuse to put my operations at risk from an agent who may react based on testosterone, rather than logic or necessity.” His expression softened slightly. “If you wish, I can base his departure on the Bulgarian mishap. His reaction in the debriefing was quite public enough that it’s common knowledge, evidently.”

Lock gave a jerky nod, his mouth still in an unhappy line.

Just at that point, they heard noises out in the hallway, indicating the remainder of the meeting participants were arriving. Lock quickly slipped his sunglasses back on, and went to stand in the far corner, slouching against a wooden chest by the wall. Anthea, after a moment’s thought, went and stood silently beside him. She caught him looking at her (well, his head turned in her direction, at least) but he quickly turned away again and gave his attention to his brother.

It wasn’t until they were halfway through the briefing that Anthea noticed that Lock’s attention had, at some point in the proceedings, migrated from Mycroft’s presentation to the other members of the current team (one of three that Mycroft was directing, composed almost entirely of people that Anthea barely knew).

She edged carefully closer to the boy, avoiding any noise that might disrupt Mycroft’s flow. As she got close enough, she realized Lock was muttering continuously under his breath, very quietly— _older sister, two cats, wants to leave her husband but hasn’t the nerve to say so, significant debt load which may ultimately pose a security risk, remember to tell Mycroft, poor driver, can’t be on transport so that’ll have to change, possible eating disorder, slight tremor in fingers from hangover—_

Anthea nudged his shoulder gently and the sound stopped like a tap being turned off, as those sunglasses turned to look at her, eyebrows arching above them in inquiry.

“What?” she mouthed. She was fairly sure he could lip-read; Mycroft certainly could.

“Evaluations,” he said, in a breath of a voice. That lopsided grin showed up again. “It passes the time, and annoys my brother. How can I resist?”

“Try,” Anthea said repressively, and turned her attention back to her (hopefully) employer-to-be.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter Two: In Which Our Heroine Discovers That Not All Spying Involves Firearms, Bespoke Clothing and Expensive Vehicles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anthea and Lock have their first mission together. It's not a bit exciting, and, as far as Anthea is concerned, anything that involves abandoned buildings and a cold, damp night is probably Above Her Pay Grade.

The assignment was—to be truthful, Anthea thought it sounded rather dull, all things considered. Of course, beggars couldn’t be choosers, and she could understand Mycroft’s instincts to try her out on a “milk run” the first time around. But in a secret recess of her heart, she’d been hoping for something a little more, well, _dashing_.

Lock, by some peculiar alchemy in that exceptional brain, picked up on her mild disappointment immediately.

“Ooh,” he crooned, as they walked back up the stairs together after the session, “you’re crushed. Not enough glamour, too little derring-do for our newest little spy.” He patted her shoulder gently in mock commiseration.

“Oh, piss off, brat,” she said. “You’re not any more excited about this than I am. I saw your face when your brother mentioned that you and I were going to be reviewing financial records.”

Anthea could see him considering whether to argue, before sighing and dropping his shoulders dejectedly.

“Well, it’s true, it’s not what I hoped for,” he said. The scowl was back. “This is all your fault, you realize.”

“ _My_ fault?” she asked, with mild outrage. “I just got here!”

“Exactly!” Lock said. “ _I_ can’t do anything exciting, because _you_ can’t do anything exciting. I’m to be your keeper on this one, to make sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Let’s review,” Anthea said icily. “Which of us, exactly, got our head kicked in yesterday for doing something stupid?”

“I didn’t do anything stupid!” the boy said, with considerable heat. “All I did was point out a lie, a very _public_ lie, that attempted to cover up a very dangerous mis-step. It’s hardly my fault if the perpetrator attacked me in retaliation.” He paused, looking down suddenly. “And I even tried to get away from him, at first.”

Well, that left her looking like a brute, didn’t it? Her conscience gave her a good sharp poke.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “You’re right, that wasn’t fair.”

Lock’s head jerked back up, his mouth agape. “What?” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I shouldn’t have said that.” He continued to stare. “What’s wrong?”

Lock gave a little bewildered shake of his head. “No, it’s…that is…people don’t ever say that. Not to me.”

Anthea felt an odd surge of protective anger. Did Mycroft Holmes have any idea what kinds of things his brother was facing on a daily basis?

“Well, they should, if they act unfairly,” she said. “And you should do the same.” That might have come directly from Aunt Margaret’s mouth; in fact, it had, many times, usually when Anthea was least inclined to agree.

“Yes, Mummy,” Lock said, with a mocking smirk.

“Well, I bet your mum told you the same,” Anthea sniffed. “And, if she didn’t, she should have.”

“She might have done,” Lock said uncertainly. “But, if so, I probably deleted it.”

Anthea blinked, stared, then blinked some more, before shaking her head. “Nope,” she said finally. “No time for that. We’ll come back to it.” She pointed down the hallway. “Right now, we have financial records awaiting us. Onward to Rochester!”

“How can I contain such excitement?” the boy drawled, but followed along obediently enough.

 

 

 

 

Rochester was dull. The temporary office, full of boxes of files, was dull. The records themselves made watching paint dry sound more exciting. It was _not_ the introduction to secret agenting that Anthea had hoped for.

Lock, weirdly enough, didn’t seem to especially mind. He caught her eye after one of her own particularly dramatic sighs, and shrugged his shoulders.

“What can I say—I like puzzles,” he said philosophically. “It’s most of what I do—pattern recognition, cyphers, decryption—though, much though it pains me to admit it, my brother is better than I at the last of those. I’m still better than 90% of those whose official job it is, though.” He raised his eyebrows and grinned. “It’s a family business, actually—my mother is the best I’ve ever seen or heard of.”

“And financial statements are puzzles?” Anthea asked. “I never would have thought so, unless the accountant was _really_ bad at it.”

“They are when there are consistent patterns to what seem to be ‘errors’,” the boy said. “Especially when those differences involve large amounts of money—well, largish, anyway.” He pointed to the stack of papers beside him. “If you compare 12 months of figures at a time, and then compare them to the previous or following 12 months, it’s easier to pick up on anomalies.”

“But, um, if that’s what you’ve been doing,” Anthea said, reminded of the fact that she, herself, had just been randomly scanning folders to see if anything screamed “Look here!” at her, “where are your notes for your comparisons?”

“Notes?” Lock asked, with a perplexed look, that “I don’t understand” divot appearing between his brows. “What would I need notes for?”

And, of course, then she realized—just like his brother, Lock had an eidetic memory. He didn’t need notes—it was all engraved inside his head. Probably in triplicate.

“I hate you,” she sighed, and returned to her aimless, dispirited flipping through files.

 

 

 

They were near the end of day two, and Anthea had passed “boredom” and marched right on into “jaded”. She. Did. Not. Care. She just wanted to be _done_. Which was, very likely, why she was slow to react when her partner suddenly stiffened and sat up abruptly from his languid slouch. It wasn’t until he emitted a long, drawn-out “Ohhhhhh” of enlightenment that she roused herself to respond.

“What?” she asked. “Did you actually find something interesting?”

“Oh, I’d say so,” Lock said, in a studiously-understated tone. “If you consider evidence of trafficking in stolen antiquities ‘interesting’.”

“What, really?” Anthea said, blinking at this sudden turn of the tide. “How do you—where is that, in all of this?” She was sure, well, fairly sure, that there hadn’t been any evidence of large individual deposits or transfers, and that kind of transaction tended to be large—didn’t it?

Lock was now excited. It transformed him—his brows lifted, his hands fluttered, he smiled without realizing he was doing so.

He looked twelve. Thirteen, tops.

He pointed at the sheaf of paper in front of him, shuffling through to align several in a row. “Look here,” he said. “And here, and here.” He poked each of the documents in turn. “There are three identical deposits of £12.500, appearing exactly one month apart.” He dug through the piles behind him and, after a minute’s search, pulled out four more. “And again. This time £26,000, repeated four times. And if we go back far enough, I’m sure we’ll find several more.” He looked at her expectantly.

“And?” she asked finally. “Couldn’t those just be installment payments from one of their vendors or something?”

“They sell low-end clothing they source from Romania,” Lock said. “How many high-dollar vendors do you suppose they have?” He dug through the piles of forms, pulling out an annual statement from three years back. “And, as it happens, they say in the precis of this statement that part of their business model is to only accept full payment up-front, to eliminate dealing with accounts receivable. So, no.” He looked unutterably pleased with himself.

“OK, I’ll buy that,” Anthea said slowly. “But how do we get from there to ‘illicit antiquities’”?

“Well, to be fair, you wouldn’t know about that bit,” he said. “Yesterday evening I was reading newspaper archives on a recent smuggling arrest—selling stolen silver that came from small state museums behind the former Iron Curtain. But it led to a fascinating link on the disappearances of items from similar settings in other parts of the world—particularly Greece, Turkey and Albania.”

Anthea found herself wondering how many other nineteen-year-old boys spent their spare time reading newspaper archives dealing with international smuggling. “But how does that tie into this?” she asked.

‘The dates,” the boy said, bobbing that mop of curls. “It all fits.” He looked at her continued blank expression before making a wordless sound of exasperation. He pointed dramatically at the pages again. “In each case, the date of the first of these trains of transfers corresponds with the date of one of the thefts. None of these are high-value items, which is genius, in a way: they’re big enough to be lucrative, but not big enough to warrant Interpol’s involvement. And then there’s the final bit of corroborating evidence—where are our targets from, again?”

“Um…Greece,” Anthea said. “Well, mostly, anyway, with one of the principals from—”

“Albania,” Lock said smugly.

Anthea sighed. “All right, then, well done,” she said, while Lock preened with faux modesty. “So, can we call your brother and go home now?”

The brows dropped instantly; the divot was back. “Of course not,” Lock snapped. “Why would we want to do that when something _interesting_ is finally going on?”

“Because it’s our job?” she said, with less-than-stellar conviction.

Lock picked up on that, of course. He beamed. “I knew you’d agree,” he said sunnily, standing and reaching for her hand to pull her up as well.

“But…where are we going?” she asked.

“Oh,” the boy said, “they have a set of small warehouses down on the river. Three of them are active, storing bundled clothing and the like. The fourth, though, has been listed as ‘vacant’ for almost five years. Seems a little odd, considering it’s costing them nearly £4000 a month in rent, doesn’t it?”

“So we’re going to get a court order to search it?” she asked, even though she had a strong suspicion that wasn’t the half of it.

Lock made a disgusted sound. “Of course not,” he sniffed. “We’ll just go take a look around. It’s late—should be no one around. This is _Rochester_ —it’s not like London, where there are security guards active, and homeless tucked in every spare corner. Once we’re sure we’re right, we’ll call Mycroft and go home in triumph.” That delighted grin was back.

And that, of course, was the kicker. It was also what led to her finding herself, dirty and disgusted, tied up in a rural barn five hours later.

 

 

 

 

Oh, it started out well enough. They were able to find a taxi relatively quickly, even though it was the middle of the night by Rochester standards. The streets were near-deserted by the time they reached the warehouse district. When they reached the address of the ‘vacant’ building, Lock leapt out of the car.

“Hang on,” Anthea shouted after him. “What about the fare?”

He stopped, eyebrows raised. “I don’t have my wallet,” he said. “I never bring it on assignment. Mycroft pays for everything, after all.” His bottom lip pursed mutinously. “He says I’m not good with money.”

“How convenient,” Anthea muttered, and dug the cash out of her leather satchel.

The building looked identical to every other warehouse around it: pleated-metal side panels, large automated garage doors on the sides, security lights that flickered occasionally, as if awaiting their turn to burn out. A bit of rude graffiti on the side completed the picture.

‘You’re sure it’s this one?” Anthea asked, after Lock had spent nearly five minutes staring at the same wall.

“What?” he said, startled. “Oh. Yes, it must be. You notice that there are clear tyre tracks leading up to the bay doors—curious enough for a building abandoned for five years. Nothing heavy, though—the tracks are too small for larger vehicles, so whatever is being moved is lightweight, small.” He still sounded rather pleased with himself.

“So?” she asked. He blinked, nonplused. “What are we going to do now?” she said, when the silence had stretched too long for her limited patience. It was dark, it was late, it was damp and chilly this near the river.

“Oh!” Lock said. “Yes. We’ll go inside and look around,” he said firmly, heading towards the rear of the building.

“No, we won’t,” she said, grabbing one of those ropy arms. “We will go call your brother and announce this minor triumph, and then we will take a car happily back to London. Where there will be hot chocolate, blankets and a soft bed.” She paused. “Well, two beds.” Didn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

“Thank you for that clarification,” Lock said, in an arid drawl. “But we won’t be going home just yet. Well, _I_ won’t, at least.” Then he headed back towards the rear again.

Anthea stood in place as that angular form vanished around the side of the building, arguing with herself between Option One: go, right now, find a call box and hand this off to Mycroft Holmes’ capable hands; and Option Two: go, right now, and find out exactly what TLS is doing on his own (because she understood now, all too clearly, that he had _earned_ that title). Neither appealed, honestly; in the end, she came down on Option Two simply because she couldn’t see trying to explain herself if she let Mycroft’s baby brother damage himself. He seemed to do so with distressing regularity as it was. She cursed (using words that Aunt Margaret only used when Anthea’s mother came to visit), slung her satchel over her shoulder, and stomped off after her partner.


	3. Chapter Three: In Which Our Heroes Meet Some Surprisingly Gentlemanly Thieves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anthea follows Lock's lead. It doesn't end well, and she will never let him hear the end of it.

Anthea rounded the corner of the building just as Lock gave a triumphant little cry: he’d found an open window, high above the ground. He looked over as she neared and beckoned with his chin.

“Pull over some of those boxes,” he said, pointing towards the loading dock just to his right. “We can stand on them and slip inside.” Anthea had her doubts; if nothing else, it was unclear if the window was quite big enough, and it would be a long drop on the other side. The boy bustled over to help, though, until they had a sizable stack, tall enough to get them readily to the window ledge.

Lock slithered through first, forestalling Anthea’s grab at his waistband. Before she could object, though, one of those big bony hands poked back through. “There’s a catwalk,” his voice came through the darkness. “We’re in luck.”

In short order, she, too, had slid through the opening, needing only a little tug from her partner when her hips snagged momentarily. “ _Not_ _one word_ ,” she snarled, as Sherlock gave a hiccupping laugh and stepped back.

Anthea stopped at the top of a flight of metal steps snaking down the side of the building and looked across the space. It was extremely well-kept for a warehouse that had supposedly been unused for four years, just as Lock had suspected. Yellowish arc lighting cast weird shadows on mostly-open space, save for perhaps twenty pallets stacked high with sturdy wooden crates of assorted sizes. The crates had lettering in foreign script on the sides. “Greek,” Lock said smugly. “Accession numbers, most likely.”

“What, you don’t read Greek?” Anthea said. “Tsk, tsk.”

The boy flushed. “I read _Ancient_ Greek. That’s all they offered at school. I understand most spoken modern Greek, however.”

“Pity,” Anthea said. “I don’t suppose it matters, though. We can go take a quick look at the boxes, then leave and get your brother. I’m ready to call it a night.”

“Spoilsport,” Lock muttered, but trudged obediently down the rest of the steps.

 

 

 

 

Anthea should have known better. She didn’t know Lock well, yet, but nonetheless already had enough of a read on his character that she should have been suspicious of that quick acquiescence. She learned her lesson as soon as they reached the stack of crates.

“Be right back,” the boy suddenly said, and darted off into the near-darkness before she could object.

“ _Sherlock Holmes_ ,” she rasped in as loud a stage whisper as she dared. “You get back here, right now!” He didn’t respond, of course. “TLS,” she said half to herself, with a bit of an anxious laugh. “You really are, you know?”

“So I’m told,” he suddenly said, appearing behind her and scaring her half to death. He had some sort of long metal rod in one hand.

Anthea resisted the urge to smack him. “All right, then,” she said firmly. “Let’s go. We’re done, and this is stupidly dangerous.” She pointed at his hand. “And put that back.”

Predictably enough, the boy ignored her and strode over to the stack of crates. He edged up to the largest one on the bottom row and shoved the metal rod into the crease between the side panels and the top, then pushed down, hard. Wood parted, with a godawful shriek that made Anthea want to jump out of her skin.

“Are you _mental_?” she gasped, pulling the rod roughly away from her scowling partner. “You’re going to get us both killed!”

“Oh, please,” Lock sneered. “If there were anyone around, they’d have already been here once we came down the staircase—metal stairs, not exactly silent, you know.”

And then Anthea’s heart skipped a beat, as a deep, accented voice suddenly came from the darkness to their right.

“Well, actually,” the voice said, “it was going through the window that set off the silent alarm. It just took us a while to get here, you know.” Three men, all with dark hair and white-toothed smiles, were at the edge of the light, while Anthea and Lock stood frozen in place by the crates. And the man in front, the one who’d spoken, held up his arm, with a very large gun in his fist.

 

 

 

 

As it turned out, the man with the gun was not the leader. The biggest man, standing behind the others, stepped to the forefront once Anthea and Lock had raised their arms (and dropped the iron rod with a clang). “Don’t look so frightened,” he said, in a voice almost low enough to rattle the windows. “We do not attack children.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “I cannot imagine what the British are thinking, sending you here.” Anthea resisted the urge to say that they _hadn’t_ sent them, strictly speaking.

“I’m not a child!” Lock said hotly. It might have been more effective if his voice hadn’t suddenly shot up half an octave in the middle.

“Nonetheless,” the man said peaceably, “you are in no danger. We are thieves, not assassins. But you will be our guests for some time, I am afraid. I must ask you to come with us—you are going on a ride to the country shortly, but we have some things to do first.”

The two teenagers stood frozen; Anthea, because she was still trying to come up with a plan, any plan, that would get them out of this; Lock, because…honestly, Anthea didn’t know what was going on in that great big brain. The answer came in the next few moments, though, when the man with the gun stepped forward, reaching out a preemptory hand to grab Lock’s arm, and the boy slid rapidly forward to try to disarm him. Before he could actually engage, though, the third man, silent to this point, darted in and backhanded Lock across his already-bruised nose. Lock dropped to his knees with a pained cry, before the big man grabbed the hair of his employee and pulled the smaller man’s face around.

“ _We do not harm children!_ ” he thundered, and threw the man away from him. He barked a command in some alien tongue, and the chastened attacker scuttled over to open a doorway into a well-lit corridor. In the meantime, Anthea bent and helped a shaken Lock to his feet. His nose was bleeding, and his upper lip slightly split. He roughly pushed her hands away, wiping blood away with his sleeve. “I’m _fine_ ,” he muttered. “Just fine.”

The big man gestured towards the doorway, herding the two of them towards what proved to be a suite of offices. Lock made himself difficult, requiring little pushes every few feet. The big man finally sighed, stopped, turned his head to the armed man, and delivered another speech in that odd-sounding language. The other man slipped the gun into his pocket and walked further down the corridor, disappearing into another room.

Big Man gave one final push to shove Lock fully into the office, Anthea trailing behind, still thinking, thinking, thinking. “Sit,” he said. “We will lock you in; there are no other exits from this room. But I would rather not have to tie you up; will you give me your word not to destroy this room in trying?”

Both Anthea and Lock sneered silently.

Big Man sighed again. “As I thought.” At that point, Gun Guy came back, holding a mug in his hand. He gave it to Big Man, who approached Lock.

“I need you to drink this,” he said, holding out the cup. Lock stared at the cup, stared at Big Man, and shook his head.

“Oh, I think you will,” Big Man said. “Because, if you do not, I will hold Little Miss’s nose and pour it down her throat. The tea contains a sedative—nothing dangerous, on my honour. I give it to my Alsatian for trips to the veterinarian. But I am thinking that, if one of you is unable to walk, the other will not leave them behind. So, you stay, but need not be tied.” He beamed, and held out the cup again. Lock, after a somewhat apologetic look at Anthea, took it and drank.

“Now what?” Lock said, pulling himself erect. Big Man gestured to Gun Guy.

“My associate will stay with you until the drug takes effect—not long, perhaps five minutes. I gave you a double dose, but I doubt you weigh twice what my dog does, so…,” he said. He held a brief conversation in that foreign tongue, then strode down the corridor, leaving Gun Guy.

Gun Guy proceeded to grab Lock’s shoulder and manhandle him over to one of the visitor’s chairs in the corner. “Sit,” he said briskly, and pushed hard enough that the boy fell into the seat with a thump. Keeping a weather eye on Anthea’s position, the man grabbed Lock’s feet in turn and roughly pulled off first one shoe, then the other.

“No!” Lock barked, making an abortive swipe at his shoes. “Those cost me my last two pay cheques.”

“Oh, shame,” Gun Guy said. “But I think they’ll fit me, and it’ll make it much harder for you to run, now won’t it?” He smirked as he toed off his own worn shoes and slid Lock’s expensive ones on instead. Then he tossed his old shoes out in the corridor, and ambled over to sit in a chair by the door.

Anthea sat in a chair next to Lock and glared death at Gun Guy, who found it amusing. “I’d like to have five minutes with you without that gun,” she snapped, and Gun Guy leered.

“Would take a bit longer than that, sweetheart,” he said, and Anthea had to restrain Lock from surging out of the chair.

She looked Gun Guy up and down. “I doubt it,” she sniffed dismissively, and the leer dropped away. Lock snickered.

Gun Guy scowled but stayed silent, while Anthea paced jerkily around the room—that is, until Lock abruptly sighed and fell out of his chair. Anthea rushed to his side, prepared to provide first aid, CPR, whatever she could think of—and then he giggled to himself, turning his head to give her a loopy smile.

“Hi!” he chirped happily. He looked around, before swiveling back to look dazedly into her eyes. “I’m on the floor,” he said, as if startled.

“Yes, you are,” Anthea said. “But it’s dirty down there. Do you think you can get up?”

He considered it, that small furrow appearing between his eyebrows. “No,” he said sadly.

Anthea turned and gave Gun Guy a speaking look, only to be met with an indifferent stare. Right, then. With very little assistance from a floppy-limbed Lock, she managed to manhandle him onto the sofa, which he then draped himself along with a contented sigh. She picked up his head and put it in her lap, and went back to glaring at their captor.

 

 

 

 

They sat in the unwelcoming office, Lock snoring softly in her lap, for at least two hours, while Big Man and his henchmen were up and down the corridor and heavy equipment could be heard, presumably moving the crates out of the warehouse. For most of that time, they’d been alone; once Lock was clearly under, Gun Guy had given a derisive bow, backed out and locked the door.

She managed to slide out from under her burden once, long enough to prowl the room and confirm that, indeed, there was no other exit. She did find an electric kettle set in a tiny alcove at the rear and made herself a cup of mediocre coffee, but was forced to return to the sofa when Lock’s eyes slid open, and the boy began making distressed sounds, lost in his head and unsure where he was. He settled quickly once she slid his head back into her lap, and she resigned herself to staying put.

Finally, as Anthea was beginning to lose the battle of keeping her own eyes open, the door popped back open to reveal Gun Guy and two additional anonymous henchmen.

“It’s time to go,” Gun Guy said, with a cheery grin. “Can the Boy Wonder walk, or do we have to carry him?”

Anthea had already given Lock a discreet pinch or two, with no real reaction. “He’s unconscious,” she said. “I only hope you haven’t overdosed him.”

“Pfft,” Gun Guy huffed. “Bertie once got dosed twice accidentally and was just fine. Slept for 24 hours, mind you, but then got up, right as rain.”

“How reassuring,” Anthea said icily. “I would like to point out, however, that my partner is not an Alsatian, so that’s less heart-warming than you may have hoped.”

Gun Guy smirked, then motioned to the henchmen, who picked up Lock like a carpet and bore him out of the room. The rough handling roused the boy, just enough for him to make occasional confused noises and flail those skinny arms around. Anthea moved forward and caught one of his hands reassuringly.

They passed through the now-empty warehouse space to a large set of accordion doors, in the middle of which was an elderly panel van, engine idling. The air coming through the open doorway was bitterly cold, in these pre-dawn hours, and Anthea’s light jacket was far from adequate. She shivered as she was nudged firmly towards the van, then inside.

The floor was partially covered by several tarps, with furniture removal pads stacked high in one corner. Her captor pushed her towards that corner, motioned for her to sit, then fished into his pocket and pulled out a set of handcuffs which he popped briskly around her wrists.

“Sit still,” Gun Guy barked, and stepped back for his helpers to deposit Lock roughly on the floor. “Do _not_ move, or I’ll have to tie your hands to the side pillar, and that will make for a very uncomfortable trip.” Anthea glared, but stayed put. Gun Guy shoved the doors shut, then trotted around and climbed in the front passenger seat as the van pulled slowly away from the warehouse.

They had been underway for less than ten minutes when Lock’s teeth started to chatter, quietly at first and then with increasing violence. Unlike Anthea, Lock had refused to wear a jacket or coat on their expedition, so he now lay exposed on the metal floorboards in a cotton shirt and trousers. The lack of shoes probably didn’t help, either.

When the boy’s entire body began to vibrate with shivers, Anthea sighed and raised her voice to catch Gun Guy’s attention.

“Hey!” she said. “I need to move, and I would presume I need your permission.”

The gunman turned slowly, raising his eyebrows.

“It’s cold,” she said. “I’m freezing in my jacket, and he’s only got his shirt. I want to drag the tarps around to cover us, so I wanted to make sure you don’t panic and shoot me.”

Gun Guy rolled his eyes. “All right,” he said lazily. “Just do it, then come right back.” Then he turned his attention back to the front.

Anthea found herself wishing she had a knife concealed in her knickers, if only to prove to this moron that even teenagers could be dangerous. But then she told herself firmly that the more this idiot disregarded her, the better off she and Lock would be. She lurched over to Lock’s side, dragging one of the tarps with her, and rolled him to one side so that she could get the edge of the tarp underneath. Then she flipped him back over and draped a second tarp over him, as he moaned and flopped an arm in protest before subsiding. Then she grabbed a third tarp, edged back into her corner and wrapped herself up.

The commotion seemed to have roused Lock a bit. He wriggled about like a bagged snake under the tarp, disappearing completely at one point before his head popped back out minutes later. He looked wildly around, eyes at half-mast, before spying Anthea. “It’s fine,” she said. “Go back to sleep.” It wasn’t entirely true, but there was no point in both of them worrying at the moment. The boy stared at her, then those pale eyes blinked, blinked, and finally closed for good.


	4. Chapter Four: In Which a Goat is Encountered, and Disgraceful Liberties are Taken With Our Young Hero's Attire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anthea and Lock reach their destination. It's cold, it's drafty, and there's a goat. Anthea likes her rather more than Lock does, though, to be fair, he has good reason to feel that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, let the romping begin! This chapter is long, but there's only a short epilogue to go.

It was bitterly cold. In these pre-dawn hours, an icy mist had fallen, and the temperature had dropped more the further into the country they went. By the time they reached a tired-looking barn, on the edge of what seemed miles of empty fields, Anthea was shivering again despite her jacket and tarp.

Gun Guy went in first, leaving his silent partner in charge (though that was a stretch—Anthea was handcuffed, and Lock was still unconscious. Not exactly high-risk, either of them). Then he bustled back out and told the silent man to get things set up, while he got Anthea and Lock out of the van.

By the time Gun Guy had led Anthea inside, one end of the barn had two old wooden stools put in place, and a small electric heater had been plugged in and was beginning to offer a bit of warmth. She found that reassuring on two fronts: first, they wouldn’t have to worry about hypothermia, most likely (even though there was many cracks and openings in the walls), and second, they must be closer to civilization than she’d thought, if this ramshackle building had power running to it. Added bonus—there was also a dim light secured in the rafters, so they weren’t in complete darkness.

Gun Guy sat her down on the first of the stools, nearer the door, but also closer to the heater. “Here,” he said, raising her cuffed hands over her head and looping them over a large hook on the wood post behind the stool. “I’m gonna just tie your feet right quick, and then I’ll drop your hands back down and give them a loose tie.” While he was working, Silent Man went out to the van and carried a limp, pale Lock inside, then tied him efficiently—each foot tightly to a leg of the stool, his hands together in front of him and then secured to his torso with a third rope, which then wrapped to secure his chest to the post behind him. Anthea gave him an accusing look as he finished, which Gun Guy caught.

“It’s not painful. Well, not much,” he said, as he finished up on her hands and removed the handcuffs. “It’ll keep him upright till he’s awake. Don’t want him to suffocate cos he falls over, now do we?”

And he was right, actually, though Anthea wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying so. Lock’s head lolled onto his chest to rest against his tied hands, but no further. He’d be sore when he woke, but he _would_ wake.

Silent Guy came back in one more time and dropped a bottle of water at Anthea’s feet, and another at Lock’s. Then he trudged back outside, and Anthea heard the van’s engine start up.

Gun Guy looked around one more time, gave Lock’s bindings a brisk tug, then theatrically dusted his hands. “Done here, then,” he said jovially. “So, here’s how it’ll go. We’re leaving now. You’re in no danger—got heat, got a bit of light, got water, though that’ll have to wait until one of you manages to untie yourself. Didn’t make those knots too difficult, Little Miss.” He leered, but there was no real heat to it. “But we’ve also got a bit of insurance. In eight hours, the farmer, who lives about two miles away, will get a phone call, telling him someone’s been messing about in his barn. We use it quite often—he’s a lazy sod, only comes out here if he’s a reason to. So, if you lot are still stuck here, he’ll likely cut you free and call your Mum for you. Or the police—these farmers ain’t always a friendly lot, y’know? And, in the meantime, me, my lot, our money and our goodies, will be loooong gone.” He doffed an invisible hat. “Cheers, luv,” he caroled, and trotted out the door. Then the van door slammed, and it barreled away.

 

 

 

They’d been there alone for at least an hour, and Anthea’s eyes were sporadically closing again in spite of her best efforts, when Lock started to wake.

“Where are we?” he slurred, his head wavering like a flag in a light breeze. He shook himself, then flinched, his eyes slamming closed again briefly. “ _Christ_ , my head hurts.”

“An old barn in the middle of frozen nowhere,” she said. “Not quite abandoned—you’ll notice the light and the heater. But supposedly two miles to the farmhouse. And it’s quite cold out.”

“Are you all right?” Lock asked. “They didn’t hurt you?”

“No, of course not,” she said. “They said they wouldn’t, after all. And he called me ‘Little Miss’.” Her lip curled in disdain.

The boy chuckled, before stopping abruptly with a gasp. His eyes closed again. “Remind me to never move again, will you?” he said weakly.

Anthea felt a curl of regret in her stomach. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Lock’s eyebrows raised. “Why?” he asked. “It was my idea, after all. I deserve most of this.”

“I’m sorry you’re in pain,” she said. “And I wish I could do something to help.” In the dim light, she could see that Lock’s already-bruised nose was once again swollen, and it looked like his right eye was blackening as well. It was no wonder his head hurt so badly, when you added in the sedative.

He made an indistinct sound that could have been agreement, but said nothing. After a moment she noticed he was tugging gently on his bindings.

“It’s not painful, but it’s quite thorough. I’m not getting out without help,” he sighed. “How are yours?”

“Looser than yours,” she said, wriggling her wrists. “I can get free, I think, but it will take a while. They told me someone would be notified in eight hours—I guess that’s our worst-case scenario.” She shifted a bit on the stool. “I really hope it’s sooner, though—I need to pee.”

That made Lock laugh again, followed by another wince. “It will likely be a bit sooner than that,” he said. “Don’t know how much, but some. I had a tracker in my belt. Mycroft insists that I wear one whenever I’m on-mission.”

“Really?” Anthea said, feeling her face break into a beam. “Brilliant! How soon should they be here, then?”

There was a long pause. A long, suspiciously quiet pause.

“Lock?” she said finally, reluctantly. “Why won’t the tracker bring them straight here?”

“Because it’s in the van,” the boy said. “I assumed they would miss it—I took it off when I was completely covered by the tarps, before I feel asleep again, so it’s still completely covered. And that means that my brother’s people will be closing on the van in short order—I pressed the distress signal before I took it off.”

He seemed to find her brief silence, as she thought that through, accusatory in nature. “It was a calculated risk,” he said rapidly. His words picked up speed as he continued. “They seemed unlikely to harm us, had in fact said repeatedly that they would not, and taking us cross-country made that even less likely. So I thought that their capture was a higher priority than our release, given that one of my brother’s first actions would be to secure our location, once he had our captors in custody.” That last bit came out fast enough that the words blurred together.

Anthea sighed. “You’re right,” she said, and saw Lock’s shoulders lower from their defensive hunch. “Especially since we know now that Gun Guy made sure we wouldn’t be here more than eight hours anyway.”

“Gun Guy?” Lock smirked. “How…descriptive of you.”

“Oh, please, I had to think of him somehow. So what did you call him in _your_ head?” she sniffed.

“Three,” he said with a deadpan look, which set both of them to laughing like loons.

 

 

 

Time passed, much too slowly. They had settled into a calm silence—Anthea, because she was working slowly at getting untied (preferably without leaving a two-inch band of bleeding skin around each wrist, thank you), and Lock because he kept abruptly dozing off.

Anthea heard it first, then—a distant jingling sound, drifting in from the darkness outside. She couldn’t see, of course—her back was to the open barn door. She twisted her head, tried to shift her torso—still nothing.

“Lock,” she called. After a moment passed with no response, she tried again. “ _Sherlock!_ ” That did the trick—that dark head jerked up, looking around for danger.

When he saw and heard nothing, Lock’s eyes narrowed. “What are you on about?” he said. “I was resting. My head hurts, and it’s not like I can do anything until you get your hands free.”

“I heard something,” she said, not quite whispering. “Outside.” As she said it, that chime came again, closer this time. It wasn’t alarming, really—it was just unsettling not to be able to look out and see.

Lock bobbed his head a bit, trying to catch a clear view. “I can’t—” he started, but cut off as there was a sudden rapid tattoo on the stone foundation just outside the door, following by a body hurtling through the opening. The bell clanged violently, much louder at this range. Then a large goat stepped into the light, looked around, quite perplexed, and said “MAAA”, startlingly loudly.

It smelled a little gamy. Anthea chuckled to see Lock’s patrician nose wrinkle. “I’ve seen a lot worse,” she chuckled. “A group of them together is a bit of a trial.”

While Lock looked on warily, the goat turned curiously to Anthea and “MAAA”-ed again.

“It’s used to people,” Anthea said, and smiled as the goat gave her a doe-eyed look and blinked slowly as it passed her, ambling towards the boy opposite. “It’s probably a bit of a pet, more than anything else.”

At that juncture, there was a soft noise, followed by—well.

“What _now_? Did it just…?” Lock said in horrified tones, trying and failing to get his nose into his crossed arms.

“They do that,” Anthea said. “Four stomachs. All that gas has to go somewhere.” Anthea’s Nan had had Jersey cows when Anthea was small, but the neighboring farm had goats. She remembered _that_ smell entirely too well.

The goat trit-trotted towards Lock, and stood in front of him as if awaiting instruction. Then it looked down, and seemed struck by something. It edged closer, gave a “MAAA” again (at which Lock flinched—too loud, too close) and dropped its head to bare yellow teeth in a grab at Lock’s expensively-socked foot.

“Stop that!” the boy yelped, and tried unsuccessfully to move enough to brush the animal away. Anthea giggled, and Lock lifted his head to glare at her before turning back to the goat, which was once again sidling close and looking at his feet.

Lock pulled himself as erect as possible and addressed the scruffy animal, currently trying to catch one of his frantically-wriggling toes. “Mr. Goat,” he began sternly.

“It’s a she,” Anthea pointed out. At Lock’s frown, she continued. “I can tell--I’ve got the view of the right end.”

The boy scowled. “All right then,” he said grudgingly, “ _Miss_ Goat--or Madam,” he interjected hurriedly, before Anthea could chime in again, “please leave my sock alone.” He said it firmly, and made eye contact—all the things that normally worked a treat with dogs.

As it happened, they didn’t work for crap with goats.

The goat made another loud “MAAA” and moved closer, to move from Lock’s feet and instead pick up the edge of his trouser leg and give it a bit of a meditative chew. Lock gave a gasp like he’d been stabbed, and managed to wrench to one side just far enough that the goat let go with a reproachful bleat.

The goat gave Lock a long, contemplative look, jaws working slowly from side to side. That inquisitive “MAAA” came again as she refocused on those tempting socks, and Lock flinched, trying fruitlessly to back his way through the post he was secured to.

“Do something!” he wailed, trying unsuccessfully to pull his tethered feet away from the stool legs. “Distract it!”

Anthea would have rolled her eyes, but didn’t want to look away long enough to do so. “What do you suggest?” she said, trying, sort of, not to laugh out loud. A chuckle bubbled up nonetheless.

“I don’t know—shout at it or something,” Lock said, his tone tight. “Get it away from me.”

“You already tried that,” she said. “Didn’t work.” She was beginning to enjoy this entirely too much. As her Aunt Margaret would say, “Straight to Hell.” Anthea was pretty sure she and Aunt Margaret would both be in that particular conga line.

“You’re my partner. You’re supposed to _help_ me. And all you do is laugh,” Lock whinged. He fluttered his feet again, which had the unfortunate effect of luring the goat even closer.

“Well, since most of this is your fault, I figure I’m entitled to a little schadenfreude,” Anthea said.

“You sound just like my brother,” Lock said darkly.

 

 

 

The first sock finally came off shortly thereafter. Lock had put up a valiant battle, twisting, cursing, shouting, pleading. Anthea, feeling a bit guilty, tried to help while still working diligently on freeing her hands--adding her own voice to the mix, whistling shrilly, bumping her stool closer. None of it worked—the goat set her teeth firmly in the bit of loose fabric she’d pulled earlier at the toe and inched backwards with little jerks of her bony bum, until the sock finally popped off and disappeared instantly into her waiting mouth.

“Bollocks,” Lock sighed mournfully.

Even after the first sock was gone, the boy didn’t give up. This time, he turned to logic, while Anthea rolled her eyes and the goat chewed contentedly.

“Look,” Lock told the goat earnestly, “you can’t eat that. It’ll clump up your digestion. Death is possible.”

Anthea managed to avoid saying that goats weren’t generally known for their foresight. She couldn’t let it pass entirely, though.

“Silk is inert in the body,” she said helpfully. “It shouldn’t hurt her a bit—pass right on through, though it’ll make for some worrisome-looking pellets, I’ll wager. We’ll have to leave the owner a note.”

“I don’t _want_ to leave a fucking note,” Lock snarled. “I want this flea-bitten, flatulent animal to _leave my socks alone!_ ” He twitched his feet again, still only able to move a few millimetres. “And you’re a horrible partner,” he added.

“Well, just for that, I may not untie you as soon as I get my hands free,” she sniffed. Because that _would_ happen, relatively soon. She’d managed to follow her training well enough to tighten all of the muscles in her wrist and forearm as Gun Guy was doing his ropes work. It meant that, once she relaxed, there was a little play in each loop. Not a _lot_ —she’d probably lose a fair bit more skin working her hands through—but she could do it.

The second sock went soon thereafter—with a bit more drama, since it involved a nip to Lock’s big toe that evoked a noise loud enough to deter even the goat momentarily. It didn’t last, though, and the sock followed its mate down through those yellow teeth into oblivion. Lock, after one last bout of shouting, fell silent and sulky, ignoring Anthea, the barn, and the goat, which then ambled back out of the barn into the night, bell chiming.

Five minutes later, Anthea triumphantly pulled her left hand free. She had them both untied in short order thereafter. Lock was still sulky, but thanked her nonetheless. With poor grace, perhaps, but he did thank her.

They both immediately picked up their respective water bottles and drank deeply. Then their conversation turned to what their next move should be.

“We have two choices,” Lock said. “We know that Mycroft has likely found the van by now, and the thieves won’t have any qualms about giving up our location. But it will take them at least an hour to get here, presumably.”

Anthea nodded. “If not somewhat more. We drove for a long time.” She stood and walked in a circle around the open area, stretching her stiff limbs as she went.

The boy nodded in his turn. “Or, we have Option B—we walk to the farm house and commandeer a phone, and make our own escape. That has two advantages—first, we can presumably wait for transport in rather more comfortable surroundings, and…” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“And we don’t have to be ‘rescued’ like orphans lost in the woods,” she responded. Because that didn’t sit with her any better than it did with Lock, apparently. “Option B it is, then.”

“I applaud your enthusiasm,” Lock said drily. “But, as it happens, we have at least one hurdle to overcome with that option. I am barefoot, and the ground outside is frozen.” He dropped his chin and looked at her through his lashes. “I am open to suggestion.”

“Well, I can’t carry you,” Anthea said bluntly. She looked him up and down carefully. “Not very far, anyway.”

He gave a crack of laughter, then flinched as his head objected once again.

“No, likely not,” he said finally. “I am willing to try the walk barefoot. But I fear the consequences of setting off, and discovering too far into the process that I can’t continue. It’s very cold, and I would be infinitely safer waiting here, than waiting outside in a frozen field.” And it _was_ cold—even with the heater, Lock was shivering in his cotton shirt. Anthea wished fervently for the tarps from the van.

Anthea was very reluctant to leave him here, though. The severe headache worried her—she _thought_ it was just the aftereffects of the drug. But he’d been hit, quite hard—what if it was actually concussion? What if, in her absence, he lay down in front of the heater, and never woke up?

She looked around, judging the state of the equipment around her before responding.

“It’s a barn, a still- _working_ barn, sort of,” she said. “There are always bits and bobs sitting around in barns—old clothes, leather work aprons, that kind of thing. Maybe we can find something to wrap around your feet. We don’t have that far to go, so it doesn’t have to be much.”

“Let’s go look, then,” Lock said. He stood carefully, then lurched to one side, almost falling. Anthea grabbed his arm and shoved him back down onto his stool.

“Stiff, then?” she asked, reluctant to release his arm until she was sure he was settled.

“No, I…a bit dizzy,” Lock said, gently pulling his arm away before running his hands distractedly through his mop of hair, then picking up his water bottle to take a cautious swig.

Anthea frowned. “Do you feel sick?” she asked. Her worry about the possibility of concussion intensified.

“…No,” he said, after a pause, which she instinctively translated as “Yes, but I’m not going to admit it.”

Anthea had noticed an old lantern earlier, sitting on a small ledge on the far side of the barn. Now, she stepped over to investigate it, and was pleased to find an old cigarette lighter tucked on the shelf behind it as well. The reservoir was almost empty, unfortunately, but the wick lit quickly, and gave off a fair amount of light. She turned to Sherlock, still wavering slightly on his stool.

“Look, you just sit,” she said. “Don’t want to make your head worse, and it’s not like searching this place is going to take long. I’ll be right back, whether I find anything or not.” He nodded, reluctantly, but stayed put as Anthea held up her lantern and headed towards the dark end of the building.

After five minutes of poking about, she gave a little cry of triumph as she tripped over something in the cluttered tack room—a pair of rubber boots, once green, perhaps, but now some murky dark colour. She picked them up and walked back to the front of the barn, stopping in front of Lock’s stool and presenting them with a flourish.

The boots were ancient—old enough that the rubber had broken down, and now had a nasty, quite sticky texture, inside and out. They were relatively clean, thank God, but that didn’t make them any more palatable. She thrust them forcefully at the boy, who held them momentarily before dropping them with a shudder and shoving his stool back slightly.

“No,” he said firmly. Then, after a beat, “Thank you.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” Anthea said, a bit huffy. “I found the damn things for _you_. We can go now—you can walk, even if it’s slowly, and I don’t have to leave you here. Put them on.” She picked them up again and dropped them at his feet with a grimace at the unpleasant texture.

Lock’s head was down, his voice low. “I…it won’t work,” he muttered. “I’ll just go barefoot.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I know they’re awful, but it’s better than frostbite, or sitting here alone for hours. And we’ve already established that I can’t carry you, remember?” She pointed at the hideous boots again. “Just put them on.”

That dark head shook again. No eye contact. “I can’t,” he said finally, as if pained. “Hypersensitive. Barefoot would be better.”

And just like that, some of Lock’s odder traits snapped into place. “Oh,” she breathed, but stopped herself at the suddenly furious look on the boy’s face.

“Don’t make assumptions,” he snarled. “I have proved my capabilities to harsher critics than you, and if either of our lives depended on it I could wear the damn boots. But they don’t, and…” he trailed off, deflating. “The walk will take an hour, maybe more,” he added miserably.

She shook her head briskly. “No, it’s fine. You should have told me sooner,” she said. “I understand.” She sat back down on her stool and started stripping off her shoes and socks, while aware of Lock gaping at her. When she finished she had two cotton socks in her hand, which she thrust at her partner. “Here. They’re not silk, but they’re quite soft and smooth, and very stretchy. Should help, at least.” She chuckled, then continued. “I’d give you my shoes as well, and take the boots myself, but I think they’d be a bit small for you.” She bent to pull her shoes back on as Lock hesitantly took the socks, turning them in spidery fingers like some alien artifact.

To break the odd silence, Anthea started talking, as Lock still stood frozen, socks in hand. “I do understand, you know—really,” she began. “My best friend at school—her little brother was autistic. He was brilliant, really funny sometimes—a bit like you, actually, but not anywhere near as verbal. But there were things he couldn’t touch, or eat. He said they were ‘sharp’—that was his word for it.”

“Yes,” the boy said finally. “That’s certainly part of it.” He seemed disinclined to discuss it further.

He sat back down on his stool, and carefully pulled the socks on. They did cover his feet—thank God for that stretchiness, then. Only went about two inches above his ankle, but it was enough.

“Are they OK?” Anthea asked cautiously, not wanting to push.

“Yes,” Lock grunted, and leaned forward to reach towards the manky boots. Before he grabbed them, though, Anthea picked up the first one and held it out for him.

“Push,” she said. “I know you hate to touch them. Just hold your trouser leg close and shove it inside as well, and the side wall shouldn’t rub your skin anywhere.” Lock blinked, but complied, his bony, sock-covered feet going into each boot in turn.

Thankfully, the boots were a bit too large—they slid on easily, not requiring any pushing or tugging.

He stood, and walked carefully in a small circle, as if testing unstable ground. If his face was any judge, it wasn’t pleasant.

“Well?” she said. “Can you…will they do?”

Lock gave a jerky nod. “It…the bottom sticking to the socks is problematic, but I can ignore it if I have to. The rest is fine.” He nodded again, as if convincing himself. “Let’s go.”

Anthea picked her lantern back up, tucked the lighter in her pocket just in case, and they headed off into the cold darkness.

 

 

 

It was harder than it sounded, walking across the fields. It was intensely cold, the ground having patches of clear ice here and there. It was uneven enough that a fair amount of concentration was required to not stumble and fall.

They talked little; they were cold, tired and stiff, and were both highly motivated to complete this trip as soon as possible. The good news was that their route was quite clear: Lock pointed out the tracks of vehicles that curved away from the barn and headed to what had to be a lane lined with hedgerows, barely visible off in the far distance. “Has to be that way,” he said. “Nothing goes the other direction—maybe it’s marshland. I believe we’re up past Ipswich, so pretty close to the coast.”

They had been walking for perhaps twenty minutes when Lock suddenly spoke. “No one knows,” he said, his eyes firmly on the uneven ground in front of him.

“Hm?” she asked, picking her way carefully over plowed rows, now frozen stiff and spiky. “Knows what?”

He gave a disgruntled sound at her denseness. “Me,” he said. “That I’m autistic.” He paused again, still walking carefully, as if weighing her character. “I would prefer it stay that way,” he said finally, his tone carefully neutral.

“Why wouldn’t it?” she asked, still focused more on her footing than the conversation. As the import of what he said abruptly sank in, though, she stopped. “ _Sherlock Holmes_. What kind of person do you think I am?” she said hotly. “It’s none of their business, and it would never occur to me to do that.”

Lock also stopped, turning fully towards her. She couldn’t see clearly in the dim light of the lantern, but he seemed… _perplexed_ , as if surprised at her reaction. She once again found herself wondering about the people he regularly dealt with.

“I just wouldn’t,” she said finally, and started walking again.

“Thank you,” he said, very quietly, and followed her.

 

 

 

They reached the lane, finally, just as the lantern gave out. That was OK, though, since the sun was just now starting to peer over the horizon. 

By the time the farmhouse came into view Lock was fading, badly. After his second stumble in two minutes, Anthea had huffed and moved over to pull his right arm over her shoulder, and lace hers around his waist. He made a frustrated little sound but didn’t pull away.

It wasn’t easy—skinny though he was, he nonetheless almost certainly weighed as much as she did. She could feel him trying to help, but his strength was bleeding out through the soles of those vile boots, and there was nothing either one of them could do about it.

Finally, finally they reached the driveway of a rambling stone house, with two vehicles parked out front and light shining through kitchen windows. Anthea settled Lock carefully on a stone wall that surrounded the front garden and knocked on the door, concentrating on looking young, harmless and not overly bright. She dredged up a few tears just in case.

It worked. An older man opened the door, and, upon seeing her, open it wider to expose his wife, round and red-faced and bustling. Within five minutes, Lock had been tucked tenderly into a soft bed in the guest room with a grateful sigh, and Anthea ensconced with a cup of hot chocolate, a scone, and a blanket in front of the fire in the front parlour, right next to the one telephone in the house.

Her hosts thought she was, indeed, calling her Mum, as Gun Guy had suggested. She asked for privacy for the call, having invented a spurious crash into a tree that was “all her fault” (divulged with a sob and a reach for the handkerchief her hostess had provided) that she was afraid to tell her Mum about, especially since her “little brother” was slightly injured in the process.

She almost believed it herself.

She didn’t try to call Mycroft directly. As per protocol, she called the mission coordinator, who routed all communications for the mission. The woman was dumbfounded to hear from her; she told Anthea that Mycroft had taken a team to apprehend the van, which had been recently accomplished, but she had just received word that neither Lock nor Anthea were inside.

Mycroft, apparently, had Not Been Happy.

“No,” Anthea said, “we judged that securing the smuggling ring was more important, so Lock set his tracker in the van. We had some minor delays as the smugglers left us, ah, a bit tied up. But we’re free, and we’re fine.” Well, relatively speaking. She carefully gave the address supplied by their host. “So, whenever you can spare a car, we’re ready for pickup.” She paused, then, remembering how woozy and pale Lock had been. "Um...but it would probably be good to send along a doctor, just in case," she added.

There was a long, astounded silence on the other end of the line, then a small “OK, then.”

Anthea hung up, pointed her toes towards the fire, and sipped smugly from her chocolate as she contemplated how lovely success felt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, yes indeed, goats really do fart. Quite a lot, in fact. There's an honest-to-God report of a plane full of goats having to make an emergency landing because the methane set off a smoke alarm (!): https://mashable.com/2015/11/04/goat-farts-ground-plane/#Skkym_nekEqj
> 
> I read that and just couldn't resist using it.


	5. Epilogue: In Which All is Resolved, and Our Young Hero Receives an Unexpected Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two are rescued, scolded, and tucked (figuratively, in Anthea's case; literally, in Lock's) in their respective beds. And we see the beginnings of an unusual friendship.

The car arrived right on time. Anthea hadn’t disturbed Lock—no point in doing so until it was necessary. So the boy was still snuffling away when Mycroft entered with the doctor enlisted to give him a once-over.

Mycroft went in with him; Anthea, after moments of debating with herself, stayed outside, biting her lip and fidgeting.

Their hostess patted her on the arm. “There, there, dearie—your big brother’s a bit cross, but that’s to be expected. He’s been that worried about you both, that’s clear. I’m sure he’ll come ‘round once the young lad’s been checked.”

Anthea was rather looking forward to telling Lock that she’d told their hosts he was 15, and they never batted an eye. Once he was well enough. If he was well enough.

Mycroft and the doctor spent a worryingly long time in Lock’s room—well, it _seemed_ worryingly long, though Anthea was stunned to find, when she glanced at her watch, that it had only been about 20 minutes, all told. When they came out, though, a drooping Lock between them, Mycroft gave an austere smile, real enough that Anthea was instantly relieved. In ten minutes, they were in route to London, with Lock tucked in the corner of the backseat with two blankets and a pillow their hosts insisted he take. Mycroft tried to pay for their trouble, and was indignantly refused. The last view Anthea had of the stone house was of the farmer and his wife waving energetically while the car pulled away.

 

 

 

 

Lock spent almost two days in hospital, the first of them largely asleep. While they completed a CT scan and MRI “just in case”, the ultimate diagnosis was mild toxicity from a veterinary sedative not deemed safe for human use. He wasn’t in any real danger, but he wasn’t very happy either, since the headache was still an issue when he was awake. Anthea came to visit him in the evening of that first day, and spent most of her time there trying to defuse the massive strop he’d worked himself into when he found he wasn’t going home yet.

She didn’t tell him that Mycroft had told her Lock would also be required to take a week off from work. She wasn’t a coward, but there were _limits_.

She saw him as soon as he returned, of course—he sat in on mission status meetings and the like, even when he wasn’t directly involved, and always stood against the back wall. When she moved to stand next to him, he gave a tiny, almost shy grin, but said nothing.

While Mycroft had been vocally unhappy at their putting themselves at risk unnecessarily, he was fair—he publicly acknowledged the success of their plan, and the unexpected bonus of a large stash of recovered artworks. Three weeks after their “grand adventure”, as Mycroft had stiffly called it in the debriefing, then, they were finally assigned to the same mission team.

This mission was an intelligence-gathering brief—their targets were widespread across Europe, and MI6 was trying to ascertain which of a number of potential candidates were actively involved in an attempt to destabilize areas of the Balkans once again. Anthea and Lock were to set up in a remote listening post in Poland, working out of an “abandoned” farmhouse located only about 1000 yards from their subjects.

They were allowed to bring only minimal supplies—one rucksack each, since the hidden base had most of the basics they would require. They packed up for their flight just after their last briefing, having brought their rucksacks with them that morning.

Lock, of course, was ready first (in part because he was bringing nothing but clothes and an unlikely number of books). “Hurry up,” he sniffed, as she dashed about between her tiny cubicle, the loo and the kitchen (because who knew what kind of tea the base might have?) “You should have packed everything last night. They won’t hold the flight, you know.”

“Yes, they will,” she said. “Since I’m carrying the authorization codes and the decryption keys.” Lock frowned, but subsided.

They had just headed for the lift, rucksacks in tow, when Anthea suddenly remembered something. She shoved her sack into Lock’s startled hands, and barked “Wait!” as she dashed back to her desk one more time. She shoved her prize into her pocket and trotted back to her partner, who was sulkily holding both bags and tapping his fingers significantly on his watch.

“Oh, behave,” she said, taking back her rucksack and slinging it over her shoulder. “I nearly forgot the one absolutely critical thing to bring along. I bought it specially for you. We can’t ever go on a mission without it.”

Lock didn’t want to ask, but his eyebrows flew up into his fringe. He finally broke when the lift arrived and they bundled inside.

“All right,” he said, “since you’re going to be mean about it. What was so critical, and why is it specific to me?” He asked it with a kind of wary look—the kind that told her he expected this to be unpleasant, and perhaps hurtful.

Which made it all the sweeter when she dug into her pocket, put her find on the palm of her hand, and his face broke into a lopsided, goofy grin that she’d never seen on him before.

Because there, in their pristine (and expensive— _very_ expensive) glory, was a pair of brand-new, extra-large-sized, black silk socks.


End file.
